Birds and climate change in the USA

J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo, NASA - NASA, http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/2006_temp_anom.gif via wikimedia commons
J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo, NASA – NASA, http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/2006_temp_anom.gif via wikimedia commons

This Sunday will see a series of marches and rallies around the world to highlight the impacts of climate change ahead of a meeting of world ‘leaders’ in New York.  I’ll be at the march in London on Sunday so maybe we’ll meet there?

Last week National Audubon published an analysis of the potential fate of North American bird species in response to climate change.  This appears to be the equivalent, in a way, of the climate change atlas for birds for Europe.

The headline figure – that nearly half of North American bird species could suffer from climate change – is just what we’d expect.  If birds, and other wildlife, are to survive rapid changes in climate they will have to be able to move across the landscape and then find the right habitats in new areas of the continent.

We can expect birds to be quite good at shifting their ranges but time will tell whether they will adapt or not, but the big question is ‘will there be enough suitable habitat for species to shift their ranges successfully?’.

Photo: P199 via wikimedia commons.
Photo: P199 via wikimedia commons.

Because US states all have their own state birds it’s interesting to see that some states may be vacated by ‘their’ birds as they respond to climate change. Maryland may lose its Baltimore Orioles as they’ll be much more like Montreal Orioles by then. Minnesota will see its state bird, the Great Northern Diver (to us, Common Loon to them) much more frequently as a winter visitor but lose it as a breeding species.

And the national bird of the US, the Bald Eagle, may lose large chunks of its current range too (although the current range map was not too convincing for this species) although its overall range could well expand – but mostly in Canada not the US.

Just as in Europe, it’s a bit of a leap of faith to believe these new projected ranges. I’d like to hear more from US birders about how many of these changes that are predicted already look as though they might be happening.  Here in Europe the successful breeding of two pairs of Bee-eaters on the Isle of Wight this year is just the type of thing we would expect from their projected range in 2080 under projected climate scenarios. And the loss of Willow Tits from southern England also seems to fit quite well. But that’s hardly a proper analysis and there is always the danger of confirmation bias.

The models won’t be perfect models and even if they are then we have to wait quite a while to find out that they are right!  But the potential changes in the ranges of a large proportion of European and North American birds are of enormous magnitude.  Birdwatching will be so different in 2080 if these projections are correct. And they represent, through climate change alone, much bigger changes than we have experienced in the last 65 since 1950.

In my lifetime as a birder the main changes I have seen have been increases in numbers of some species thanks to the efforts of nature conservationists and wise legal protection of species and sites, and losses due to intensive resource exploitation of farming, fisheries and forestry.  Will the future be dominated by changes caused by climate change, or will our unsustainable land use still be the major factor causing losses of populations and range? Well, it does rather depend on whether world ‘leaders’ do any leading or not – that’s why I’ll be marching on Sunday.

Piccadilly_"The_Wave"_05_December_2009_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1607532.jpg ‎ via wikimedia commons
Piccadilly_”The_Wave”_05_December_2009_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1607532.jpg ‎ via wikimedia commons

 

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12 Replies to “Birds and climate change in the USA”

  1. “confirmation bias”
    … that could have been avoided by using a temperature anomaly graphic extending back to before the Medieval Warm Period or preferably half a million years. The Vostok and Epica ice core records are quite good. Just for perspective, like

    1. Sorry, FC, I’m not totally sure that I understand your comment.
      However, if you’re trying to suggest that climate change is not real, and is not very likely to be largely man-made, then I can only conclude, given the overwhelming scientific evidence to that effect, that your view must be the result of a high degree of, err… ‘confirmation bias’.

      1. The blog title is “Birds and climate change in the USA”. However, the Hansen graphic is merely an egregious example of cherry-picking to support a political agenda.

        To see the tree rather than the cherry requires a view of a longer data set than post-Industrial revolution only. The modern warming can then be seen in the context of past warming and coolings. Assuming the disposition of continents was stable by 20Mybp, it might be illuminating to look at climate data from then onwards. Or, if you prefer, 0.4Mybp from when hominins invented the match and the chainsaw and started effecting land use change and their earliest possible influence over climate and potentially the distribution of flora and fauna.

        H H Lamb’s “Climate, History and the Modern World” is worth reading for its accounts of human migrations and abandonments as past climate changes – measured at a human generational rather than geologic timescales – affected crop growth and the distribution of humans. These changes were rapid, not non-existent or glacially slow as often inferred by those who assume, or wish that, nothing ever changes and that the global temperatures of the 1970s must be maintained forever. Even if we could do that. There must be a name for them but I can’t think of it at present. Cnutists? Stasisists? Stasi?

          1. You may. I’m not into squandering natural resources on pointless gesturing so I will be maintaining my parsimonious policy towards unnecessary travel and watching butterflies, bumblebees and buzzards in the garden.

        1. Filbert.
          Weren’t past (rapid) warmings and coolings mainly a result of “greenhouse gases”, volcanic activity etc?
          Also didn’t most of these rapid temperature shifts result in a great destruction of complex life forms on earth.
          Scientists agree (do they not) that our current warming is being accelerated as a result of human activity, not volcanoes or sunspots or the earths tilt or plate shifts. Human activity.

          So. If this current warming is anthropogenically-accelerated and this current warming might result in destruction of many life forms as did all the other (more “natural” rapid temperature fluctuations)… might it not be desirable to at least acknowledge we might be destroying various life forms (perhaps your bumblebees or buzzards) and possibly try to do something about it?

          Or do you believe that its happened in the past, life survived (or changed or migrated) so there’s nowt to be concerned about.

          I’d be interested to hear.

          1. Doug Mack Dodds – (this is a comment posted by Mark on behalf of filbert cobb who has had problems posting a comment)

            You might get the impression that scientists agree on the extent of anthropogenic driving of the current warm phase – but they don’t. Especially those who actually collect and interpret real-world data rather than treating modelled projection runs of general circulation models as data. Policy-makers, who tend to be PPE graduates with barely fledged Meejar Studies or Poetry graduates as SPADS, can’t affect the past and have to work predictively so they can screw up the future for us, their grateful electorate. And there’s the root of our problem – politicians and activists. Arrogant, stupid humans whose overriding wish is to force us into conformity with their world-view.

            The Age of Stupid follows: Diverting food into bio-fuel production to meet “obligations” distorts markets and supply chains and mostly hurts the poor. Riot and disorder follow – where were the roots of the Arab Spring? Renewables increase the cost of electricity for industry and home, hurting the poor, while increasing the need for fossil fuel maintenance of spinning reserves. Our own miniscule reductions in GHG emissions, are completely marginalised by current coal-burning in Asia, which will increase continuously for decades to come.

            In the background is the inconvenient truth of the temperature plateau that has now lasted more than 17 years. The models – that drive policy decisions – didn’t predict it. It’s still warm, but the temperature trend is downwards – just. Over the same time CO2 has continued to rise inexorably. There are at least 50 excuses for where the theoretical missing heat has gone – unnoticed – and not one of them is “We got it wrong and we don’t actually know what’s happening”.

            Other inconvenient truths are found wherever you want to look. Beware any weather event description with the word “unprecedented” in it. Such claims are usually debunked with a few hours. If anyone is concerned about the frequency and severity of extreme weather events they might want to get out their worry beads and hope we don’t get a bad dose of global cooling. The Sun is quiet.

            Our ability to cope with whatever climate variations bring in the future – which for me at the age of 94 is rather short even if I have been 94 for the last thirty years – requires
            sufficient prosperity and affordable energy at a global scale to maintain the ability to adapt, relocate and rebuild. The notion that we are going to be able to do this with
            intermittent power supplies is completely dumb. So it’s important that the right decisions are made for the right reasons – which don’t include political ideology in my book. We need to protect nature, not wreck it with wind and solar farms and biofuel cultivation and biomass burning that damage our wildlife and our landscapes and serve to make energy more expensive than it need be, weakening our ability to cope with whatever climate variation lies ahead. Doing nothing is not an option – doing the wrong things is stupid.

            Don’t take my word for any of this – I don’t exist. Start with an open mind, go seek stuff out for yourself and see where you end up. Scepticism is healthy.

            Googleworthy: The Hockey Stick Delusion (Montford); The Deliquent Teenager (LaFramboise); Club of Rome; Limits to Growth, Agenda 21; The Yamal Deception (Montford); The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science (Ball); Institutional Bias (Montford); Hiding the Decline (Montford); climate McCarthyism; Richard Tol, Judith Curry, Die Kallte Sonne (Vahrenholt & Luning); The Propaganda Bureau (Montford); H H Lamb; Paul Homewood’s blog (meteorological archives); Climategate; 28-Gate
            (http://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/28-gate-bbc-crisis-deepens-in-exposure-of-rigged-and-unlawful-climate-policy/); GWPF; photosynthesis, growth rate, water and temperature interactions in plants.

          2. filbert – this is Doug coming back at you

            Filbert – Many thanks for the reply.
            I am trying to keep abreast with the referendum today so please forgive my rather staccato copying and pasting (and commenting) to your comment above.
            You’re in italics below – and I’m in bold (if my HTML works).

            You might get the impression that scientists agree on the extent of anthropogenic driving of the current warm phase – but they don’t.

            They might not agree on extent of acceleration, but that’s not what I said. They DO agree that WE are accelerating climate change (this time) whatever the extent.

            And there’s the root of our problem – politicians and activists. Arrogant, stupid humans whose overriding wish is to force us into conformity with their world-view.

            Wow. Possibly I s’pose?

            Our own miniscule reductions in GHG emissions, are completely marginalised by current coal-burning in Asia, which will increase continuously for decades to come.

            This line has been trotted out ad nauseum. China are still belting out smerk, so twon’t make a difference if ‘little old we’ stop. This line of thought will always be an impenetrable barrier to any progress of any sort. An illegitimate absolvement of responsibility too.

            In the background is the inconvenient truth of the temperature plateau that has now lasted more than 17 years. The models – that drive policy decisions – didn’t predict it. It’s still warm, but the temperature trend is downwards – just. Over the same time CO2 has continued to rise inexorably. There are at least 50 excuses for where the theoretical missing heat has gone – unnoticed – and not one of them is “We got it wrong and we don’t actually know what’s happening”.

            Firstly there are plenty of scientists who are candid enough to admit they’re unsure about this at present. As many as have speculated that (e.g.) the heat is being held in deep oceans etc… That’s the beauty of science. It’s a cautious discipline. At least it should be. (Invariably is).
            Secondly – For an intelligent (clearly) man like yerself Filbert, it surprises me that firstly you’ve drawn our attention to “confirmation bias” in your first comment to this post and then (unfortunately) sank back into the comfortable armchair of “confirmation bias” that many climate change deniers sit back in from which to puff from their pipe – after pointing at the “plateau”.
            Most (nay all) “plateau pointers” are extremely selective with their data (years) when suggesting warming has stopped. Invariably for them, this “plateau” begins post 1998 which was extremely warm, primarily down to El Nino activity. But most “plateau pointers” don’t acknowledge that, nor do they acknowledge the possibility of past “plateaus”. A pure distillation of “confirmation bias” this ‘plateau argument’ Filbert.

            Other inconvenient truths are found wherever you want to look.

            Other? (See above)

            So it’s important that the right decisions are made for the right reasons – which don’t include political ideology in my book.

            Nor mine. Political ideology or just plain old ideology.

            We need to protect nature, not wreck it with wind and solar farms and biofuel cultivation and biomass burning that damage our wildlife and our landscapes and serve to make energy more expensive than it need be, weakening our ability to cope with whatever climate variation lies ahead. Doing nothing is not an option – doing the wrong things is stupid.

            Absolutely agree with you about wind power and biofuel cultivation.

            Don’t take my word for any of this – I don’t exist. Start with an open mind, go seek stuff out for yourself and see where you end up. Scepticism is healthy.
            Again – I agree completely. In fact scepticism is (I would say) necessary.

            Googleworthy: The Hockey Stick Delusion (Montford); The Deliquent Teenager (LaFramboise); Club of Rome; Limits to Growth, Agenda 21; The Yamal Deception (Montford); The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science (Ball); Institutional Bias (Montford); Hiding the Decline (Montford); climate McCarthyism; Richard Tol, Judith Curry, Die Kallte Sonne (Vahrenholt & Luning); The Propaganda Bureau (Montford); H H Lamb; Paul Homewood’s blog (meteorological archives); Climategate; 28-Gate
            (http://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/28-gate-bbc-crisis-deepens-in-exposure-of-rigged-and-unlawful-climate-policy/); GWPF; photosynthesis, growth rate, water and temperature interactions in plants.

            I will choose a few of those at Random Filbert and see how I gerron. I have read “Science and public policy (The virtuous corruption of virtual environmental science” by Aynsley Kellow (Edward Elgar) which I think everyone interested or involved with any form of environmental science should read. Especially those younger than you (and indeed me in many cases) who hang their hats on such neologisms as “biodiversity” without actually understanding what that ‘word’ actually meant, how it was coined or what indeed it means today. What it REALLY means.

            Anyway, thanks again for replying Filbert. And I’m sorry Mark had to publish this instead of me – because it looks like I shared a similar (long comment) problem as yours.
            Doug

  2. DMD
    As my position is – if we are to resort to labels – in the “Lukewarmist” camp I can’t see see how drawing attention to the apparent divergence of temperature from the model projections can be called bias. I used the term “plateau” to describe the shape of the plot – it doesn’t hold the inferences of “pause” or “hiatus” or “downturn”. Of course you can find similar plot shapes throughout the geological record, including very steep temperature hikes and declines unassociated with CO2. As for 1998 – it’s the year that the Met Office picked in their three July 2013 papers. What needs an answer toot sweet is why temperature is not progressing inexorably upwards in tandem with CO2. Airy dismissal with a hand wave and mutterings about uncertainty and promises that the temperatures will resume their rise and please keep giving us money are not good enough – CO2 is supposed to be the Big Red Control Knob and it is costing us £Squillions to turn it down. It might help if the Climastrologists would determine what controls cloud formation (therefore albedo) and factor that into their currently dysfunctional models. Then we might have a better idea about what – if anything – should be done and whether we can stop puffing out our chests and declaring our moral superiority.

    Many of the climate mitigation options are described as “low-regret” – things we should be doing anyway. I would prefer that we did them for those other, proven good reasons – topics for another day perhaps.

    Another good read: “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” – Charles Mackay. And btw it’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion”, not as I quoted earlier.

    1. FC – I just can’t let this stuff go by unchallenged. Let’s start with something I agree with you on – the policy response to the threat of climate change is indeed feeble, and is especially wrong-headed with respect to biofuels. However, many of the other points in your earlier comments simply don’t bear scrutiny. To take just a couple:

      There is overwhelming evidence that CO2 is indeed the main control knob setting global temperature – watch Prof. Richard Alley’s talk to the AGU at
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RffPSrRpq_g
      especially about 35 minutes in, where he shows that the big global temperature swings throughout geological time were all associated with changes in CO2 levels.

      You mention that many scientists are not very interested in cloud formation. This is true – but that’s because clouds are probably not important in climate change. Clouds do reflect incoming radiation (their effect on albedo, which you mention), but they also trap heat at the earth’s surface (something you neglect to mention), and the net effect of these two opposing actions is thought to be close to zero.

      But I must thank you for giving me the best laugh of the week. Your list of sources that are ‘googleworthy’ is just a riot. No mention of any of the authoritative figures in the field – the professors that head up the research groups gathering the data, writing the papers and arguing over the details – such as Hansen, Schmidt, Mann, Alley, Pierrehumbert, Rahmstorf and many more. No mention of any of the scientific papers and reviews giving the evidence for man-made, CO2-mediated climate change, which now number in the thousands. No mention that essentially all of the major scientific institutions throughout the world (including the UK’s Royal Society) have produced statements, often aimed at the lay reader, endorsing the notion of man-made climate change. Instead your give a bunch of second-rate sources, some of which have been shown to be unreliable over and over again, including a notorious climate change blog that is actually written by an accountant.

      You say it is good to be sceptical, but you swallow stuff from dodgy sources without question, while rejecting the best brains actually working in the field. But, best of all, you accuse Mark of ‘cherry-picking’ and ‘confirmation bias’! It’s just hilarious.

      1. Hansen is the cherry picker, with a political agenda.

        The list of googleworthy topics was for DMD’s benefit and points towards critiques exposing the manipulation of data, the corruption of the policy process and the presentation of climate science by the media. I didn’t consider that DMD would need any pointers to climate science as he is obviously well informed already. If I am guilty of “swallowing” stuff it was the CAGW meme that I assumed was kosher for many years – until about 2005-ish when I tripped over the Manhattan Declaration.

        My scepticism is not about factual stuff as entertainingly presented by Richard Alley. It’s about the use of dydfunctional climate models to drive economic policy, and the corruption of science and policy as described by Forster, Botkin, von Storch, Curry, Marohasy, Tol – to name just a few. In particular this link to a Daniel Botkin submission I found via the Allen video ticks the boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDIYo1TvLAQ

        Andrew Montford is as far as I know a chemistry graduate of St Andrews – I’ve no idea why he switched to accountancy. However, I would hazard a guess he is better qualified to comprehend and comment on matters of science than, for instance, the architect of the Climate Change Act, Bryony Worthington, an English Literature graduate, fundraiser and FoE campaigner. I do find an increasing level of snarkiness towards any aspect of conservation coming from the commenters on the Bishop Hill blog that I don’t like. I think this stems from antipathy towards the undue influence of some NGOs on gubmint policies, especially on energy, from the many engineers, statisticians, chemists and physicists that post there.

        1. Filbert, you’re wriggling!

          You now say: “My scepticism is not about the factual stuff…” That is just not consistent with your earlier posts, where you tried to challenge the basic concept that CO2 primarily determines land and sea temperatures over long time scales.

          And you’re at it again! You’re choosing to listen the utterings of a retired professor of ecology rather than take on board the huge body of work produced and published by dozens of climate science labs. from all over the world. It is just possible that they are all part of some monstrous, co-ordinated global conspiracy to tell lies about the science, but that’s not where I would put my money!

          I’m not interested in the slightest in making comparisons between Montford and Bryony Worthington – but I might be more interested in comparing Montford’s climate science credentials with those of Hansen, Schmidt, Alley, Rahmstorf, Pierrehumbert et al.

          I’m not going to engage in an endless ‘back and forth’ argument with you here over the science – my honest impression is that you’re out of your depth.

          But I do agree with you that the policy issues arising from the science are extremely complex, difficult and riddled with uncertainty, and that many policy initiatives to date have been misguided. I also feel strongly that legitimate concerns over climate change must not be allowed to distract us from other environmental issues. To answer the question Mark posed at the end of his piece above, my guess is that for at least the next decade the main threats to wildlife will continue to be habitat loss, introduction of alien species, over-exploitation, persecution and pollution.

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